Wednesday, April 20, 2011

6 Months Old

Happy six months! Here we are again, ready for more updates. Aaron is doing great. It is amazing to watch him grow and change every day. Here’s what’s new this month:

Weight: 17 pounds, 8 ounces (50th percentile)

Height: 28.5 inches tall (95th percentile)

Head: 17.5 inches (75th percentile)

The doctor was pleased again with how well he is doing at his 6 month checkup. He commented on how alert Aaron was and how well he paid attention when I would talk (we’ll see how long that lasts!). He is growing just beautifully as you can see. Some developmental milestones on the doctor’s checklist were:

Rolling over and beginning to sit by himself – we prop him up and help support him sitting up a lot, and he is getting stronger, but he’s not quite there yet. He is a champ at rolling and is just all over the place when he plays!

Squeal, babble, laugh and cry very loudly – check, check, check and yes, check (though not all that often!)

May be afraid of people they do not know – he is a pretty social guy if you give him a chance to warm up when entering into a new environment. He’ll cling to Chris and I until he gets his bearings, and then he is happy to hop laps and say hello to everyone.

It has been a busy last few weeks! Aaron was baptized on April 10. Chris’s parents and grandparents came into town for it, and it was a wonderful weekend being surrounded by the love of family and friends. I think Chris and I both viewed this as a milestone not just for Aaron, but for our family as well. It has taken so much to get to this day of celebrating our amazing healthy little boy, and we were all feeling pretty grateful to be at this stage. My church did a beautiful job. They acknowledged Noah, which we appreciated, as well as making it very special for Aaron. He was given a baptismal shawl as a keepsake that we can wrap around him and remind him how blessed he is. Because we were coordinating a wiggly little boy, as well as being up front for the actual ceremony, we don’t have pictures that we took ourselves of course. I hired a friend of mine who does photography to take pictures for us, and those will be coming to us soon (likely next post). We are eager to share them with you all!

Aaron is baptized! (Video is about 5 minutes long):

The weekend of Aaron’s baptism, I was getting Aaron into his car seat for more activity with Chris’s side of the family, when Aaron grabbed my finger and bit down. Lo and behold, there was something hard in his mouth! Oh my goodness, he just got his first tooth! When I took him for his 6 month checkup, I had the doctor look to be sure since we had thought he had one coming in at 4 months, and it ended up being something else. He confirmed that yes, we have entered into teething! Aaron is doing pretty well with it. He rarely acts like it bothers him, aside from wanting to chew on everything and drooling like you wouldn’t believe! It is just a little nub right now. Once it is fully in, I will post pictures! It has made breastfeeding a bit interesting (read: painful) but we’re working it out. I have gotten some great advice from some experienced moms that has been working pretty well so far. If you have any pearls of wisdom for me, please do share!

Speaking of breastfeeding, the doctor told me that Aaron is quickly outgrowing what I can provide for him, and it is time to do solid foods! To start, he will still be on breast milk 90% of the time. We will just give him some baby food once a day, just a few spoonfuls as get gets used to it. We will build up from there in the coming months until he is totally on baby food. It makes me a little sad that after all this hard work with breastfeeding that it is the beginning of the end! I hope to get him through his first year with breast milk, and so far that is going well, but as time goes on from here, he will need me less and less. I have to say that breastfeeding has been a love/hate relationship, which makes this so ironic. It is hard with pumping all day while I am away from him, and worrying about having enough, as well as the stress of being the only one that can feed him. But, in the quiet moments of the day when it is just me and him, and he’s snuggled into me and perfectly content and we have that wonderful time together, I get sad that this will be ending.

We started him off with carrots this last weekend. He hated it! He kept looking at us with an expression that said “Mom and Dad, why are you doing this to me?” We quickly moved onto sweet potatoes which he seems to like. It takes him forever to swallow it, but I have to say he’s doing pretty well so far. We have also tried him out using a sippy cup with a little bit of water. He LOVES it and gets mad when you take it away! One of us has to distract him while the other hides the cup. Glad that part is easy!

Aaron eating carrots:

Aaron loves his new high chair!

Enjoying drinking water from a sippy cup!

Sleep is going well. We have kept on trucking along with the advice in the book “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child.” Aaron sleeps great about 5 out of 7 nights. He will still fall off the wagon a time or two a week. It is so hard on those nights when we know that he can sleep well because we’ve seen him do it! But, we try not to complain since life was a lot tougher just a couple of months ago before starting this. The trick has seemed to be that when he goes down for the night, so do I. I am in bed about 8:30 or 9:00pm if I can swing it. He will sleep all night, but he gets up early, and I have to be prepared for it. Fortunately, I have finally fully adjusted my life to him, and really, all I want to do with my free time is sleep anyways, so it is a no brainer to go to bed early!

I used to look at my friends that had kids back before I felt the itch to do it myself, and I would wonder why? Why the push to do it? It is no small thing to give up your freedom, to spend huge amounts of time at home rather than out doing whatever you want. Now? I would take all the poopie diapers, big spit ups, late nights, and the challenges of learning new things on the fly every day because being somebody’s mother is to spend every waking moment head-over-heels in love in a way that I never could have imagined before having kids. I look at Aaron doing the simplest of things and my heart just squeezes and I get butterflies. He is completely amazing and fascinating to me, and to watch him grow is such a tremendous joy. His laugh is just the definition of heaven to me. Watching him focus on a toy I have put before him, and to see him interact by reaching out and exploring it himself just fills me with pride. Hearing him “talk” and feeling him squirm and cuddle up close to me is the makings of a perfect day. This is good stuff being a parent. I feel very fulfilled at home these days. It is pretty amazing, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything!

Just for fun, Aaron was being silly, practicing making fierce, roaring noises tonight:

Other Favorite Pictures:

Aaron can not only grab his feet now, but he has discovered he can get them in his mouth! His flexibility amazes me...